My name is Sam Gedert, and I am the founder and lead facilitator here at the Action Factory. I created the Action Factory for a few simple but vital reasons. I love solving problems, I love working with dedicated, passionate people and I love self-improvement.

Over the last 20 years, I’ve gained a unique collection of experiences in the areas of government, campaign politics, public affairs, and technology. In that time, I learned a ton about technology, politics, and the legislative process but I learned even more about interpersonal communication and the challenges of self-mastery.

Early in my career I was convinced that the key to success was to develop the correct set of technical and tactical skills. While these skills are of course essential, for me they were secondary to the challenges of effective communication, team-building, and leadership. If I didn’t know how to effectively communicate with and motivate people or couldn’t control my temper, it didn’t matter how well I knew how to code HTML or configure a router. This recognition has ignited in me a passion for learning, not how the world and all its different systems work, but rather how I and the other seven and a half billion fleshy bioelectric computers known as human beings work. Why we do what we do? Why do we react the way that we do? And, perhaps most importantly, why, when we come together to do something called a “project” it is often so mind-numbingly frustrating.

I was never much of a book learner and was subsequently a terrible student in school. However, what I did have was a willingness to wander into a new situation, opportunity or challenge and just “see what happens.” While this method has likely saved me the time and expense of a masters degree, it hasn’t been without its frustrations.

In 20 years of applying the “deep end of the pool” program of self-discovery, I made a lot of mistakes. I mean a LOT of mistakes. I’m talking a shockingly, seemingly unimaginably large, number of mistakes. I like to think of myself as the Thomas Edison of personal growth. Not that I’m a genius at it, but rather that I don’t consider my mistakes failures. I’ve simply found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.

Today, I combine my passion for understanding people and the organizations they create with the collective knowledge I’ve gained from my library of mistakes to help clients avoid some of the same pitfalls. If you haven’t guessed already, I love what I do, and I look forward to helping an ever increasing numbers of passionate people bring their ideas to fruition.

TECHNOLOGY

TECHNOLOGY

I started my career in the Ohio Senate where I was a part-time legislative aide and part-time systems admin. Since leaving the Senate, I’ve started and run several successful IT businesses that serviced clients from one-person shops in Columbus Ohio to congressional committees and offices in Washington D.C.

CAMPAIGNS & PUBLIC AFFAIRS

CAMPAIGNS & PUBLIC AFFAIRS

The problem-solving disciplines I learned in I.T. translated well into the world of campaign politics, where solutions we just as necessary, but the problems not always as obvious.

GOVERNMENT

GOVERNMENT

Working with and in government helped my hone my project management skills. In the often slow-moving machinery of government, it’s vital to have a clear plan with well-articulated assignments and clearly defined deliverables.